More than 31 million Americans live in poverty. One in every six of our children live in poverty.

Some of our nation’s poor even sleep each night on the steps of the buildings just visible from the bedrooms of the White House.

And sadly, many of those who sleep on America’s streets are our veterans from US wars . . .

Sadly, nor is ours a democratic society.

In November 2000, the Republicans stole from America our most precious right of all: the right to free and fair elections.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his Secretary of State Katherine Harris, created a phony list of convicted felons–57,700 to be exact–to “scrub” thousands of innocent people from the state’s voter rolls. Of the thousands who ultimately lost their vote through this scrub of voters, 80% were African-American, mostly Democratic Party voters. Had they voted, the course of history would have changed. Instead, however, Harris declared Bush the victor by only 537 votes.

Now President Bush occupies the White House, but with questionable legitimacy.

But however he got there, his Administration is now free to spend one to four billion dollars a month on the war in Afghanistan . . .

free to cut the high deployment overtime pay of our young service men and women fighting in that war . . .

free to propose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve National Park . . .